


Made of Fire

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 01:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10374615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: She is Elia Martell, Princess of Dorne. She must always be more than her (physical) weakness.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/gifts), [grumkin_snark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumkin_snark/gifts).



> I saw some truly terrible meta on Elia. My response to bad meta, these days, is to fic.

Elia Martell is made of fire. This should surprise no-one - she is of House Nymeros Martell, of Sunspear, of Dorne.

She is made of fire.

People do not expect this of her. She is weak, physically, she knows. Her joints ache constantly, some mornings she is inexplicably tired, and when the weather cools she coughs and shivers and her head aches terribly.

But she is Elia Martell, Princess of Dorne. She must always be more than her (physical) weakness.

Oberyn understands, mostly, and Mother. Doran doesn't, but she doesn't mind so terribly. He is never patronising in his protectiveness of her, even when Oberyn is, on her worst days.

Elia is weak (physically), but emotionally, mentally,  _politically_ , she is strong.

(She is Dornish, and a Princess of Dorne. She is made of fire.)

(Their words are, after all,  _Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.)_

Rhaegar doesn't know what to make of her. To be fair to him, she is a wife foisted on him that he did not expect nor ask for. To be fair to _her_ she did not know what to make of him, nor King's Landing, nor the _King_ and yet she has adjusted perfectly well.

It is hard to not resent his freedom in this, so she does, and she hides it well. 

She has to hide it. Aerys may hate his son, but he hates the Dornish and any who might threaten Targaryen rule just as much. The court is filled with fire.

Elia Martell is made of fire. She learned politics at her mother's knee.

(Some days, she surprises even herself with how well she survives court.)

("Do not be," Rhaella tells her, voice as gentle, health as delicate, as her own. "You are made of fire. It is why Rhaegar's madness does not burn you.")

Rhaegar's madness burns her once, when he crowns the Stark girl with roses instead of her.

He is a fool. A mad fool to not see what he has done and a worse one if he does see.

He does see. He runs from court, from her, from their  _children_ and all Elia's burning fire turns to burning ice that could destroy the North-hardened Stark girl as easily as her fire-mad husband.

Ice cannot protect her from Aerys' fire, however, and she is locked up at court with her children even while the Queen and Prince Viserys are sent to safety.

Her fire returns before she dies, burns to protect her children, to hate her husband, to hate the men battering down the door.

Elia Martell is made of fire, and even a dragon could not burn as bright.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


End file.
